


Adrift

by trascendenza



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Gen, layers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-10-09
Updated: 2007-10-09
Packaged: 2017-11-29 12:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trascendenza/pseuds/trascendenza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter sees himself as a vast wasteland: potential scattered everywhere, refusing to grow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adrift

Peter’s not alone, exactly.

But in a crowd of a thousand of Nathan’s applauding admirers he is adrift, just another fragment in a sea of faces that form the jigsaw of the Petrelli contingency.

And though he craves the spotlight, when he’s singled out by Nathan’s falsified and oversweet sympathy, he feels naked, ugly, exposed. Like the spiders Nathan would squash under his wingtips in their room, stopping Peter from putting a cup on top of them to take them outside.

Nathan doesn’t give his time to the ugly things in life. Until they can serve him, that is.

*

But then again, Peter’s never truly alone.

He dreams about escape more than anything else, mostly at home, curled up on his bed with a pillow between his legs and dissecting his life bit by bit in his head. Sleep doesn’t come easily to the incurably mediocre. He runs exhaustive circles around and around, _not good enough, not good enough yet._

Or sometimes it’s in a crowd, a longing gripping in the center of his chest and constricting his throat, _what if none of them ever needed me, again?_

He fantasizes about a life without responsibilities, where no one knows he exists.

*

Peter surrounds himself.

_Him. I just need to help him._ But there’s always another him or her, always another task he has to put his hand to, _then I can take a break._

And, Nathan, Nathan whom he wants to reach so badly that he hurts with it, Nathan who holds him but not close enough to lose himself, and for Peter it’s a striving, unsatisfactory kind of love: _if Nathan will just do this, then I’ll know. Then I’ll know he really means it._

He finds people who want—no, _need_ —him and surrounds himself, tries to drown himself out.

*

Because Peter can’t be alone.

Peter sees himself as a vast wasteland: potential scattered everywhere, refusing to grow. When he pours his energies into others he doesn’t have to look at it, and still it’s a constant companion, a dry and brittle undertone to everything he does.

Nathan doesn’t understand; _I keep telling you give up that nursing gig and come work for me_. That shouldn’t surprise him. Nathan is larger than life, and has all the things Peter is too ashamed to admit he wants.

Peter can’t be alone, because he only exists in comparison to those around him.


End file.
